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What System do you prefer for sharpening your chisels?

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Formerly know as Mandodiddle.

I settled on the Veritas Mark II guide and use it with diamond stones and 1200 grit on granite surface plate. I've used the MarkII for maybe 15 years. For sharpening, I use the MKII guide to diamond lap at 700 then 1000, then move to 1200 Wet or Dry and finish with a leather strop. I use the micro bevel feature. With a microbevel I can resharpen in 3-4 minutes. It takes longer to get then clean and stow the diamond plates. I use dollar-store windex on diamond stone and 3M paper.
I can touch-up an edge maybe 4 or 5 times on a leather strop before having to go back to the stones.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/to ... em=05M0920 .

For repairing damaged edges, I use a bizarre drill press system from Taylor Tools- I give it a 9 out of 10 for effectiveness- it works amazingly well. You have to build your own holder, and it needs to be pretty precise. It would require a separate thread to describe it but there is a very good YOUTUBE video on it. https://taytools.com/products/drill-pre ... 777f&_ss=r

YOUTUBE video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Y1AANySkY

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

We really should not be discussing religion, which is what sharpening discussions seem to devolve to on most of the woodworking fora.

Two issues here: grinding and honing. Grinding is done infrequently, while honing is a relatively frequent activity if working more abrasive woods.

For grinding: An 8" low speed bench grinder with CBN for most flat work and a ceramic/aluminum oxide wheel for work which the CBN is unsuited. A LV steady rest works, but I don't bother with their guide thingie as it adds nothing but complication once you understand how to grind a chisel bevel on the slightly crowned CBN wheel. I usually grind at 25 degrees, and only when the honed bevel extends more than 50% of the way across the ground bevel.

Equipment:

- 8" low speed grinder (I have a Rikon 80-808 1 hp model) - About $250 when on sale at Woodcraft; $320 otherwise.
- 8" 80 grit CBN wheel from Tools for Working Wood (about $140)
- 2 x Veritas Grinder tool rest (about $60 each)

For honing: I use the same two-stone system that I spent years using at Greenridge, with a chisel taking about 60 seconds to resharpen and a block plane about two minutes. In a side-clamping jig (or free-hand... if you really enjoy honing versus just need it done), I knock off the dull edge with a coarse DMT diamond stone (a large 10" DuoSharp C/CX combo) and go immediately to an 8000 Norton waterstone. A hard strop can help polish the edge from a coarser stone, such as the 4000, but it does nothing for the edge off the 8000. The stones will last at least 20 or so years of shop use, so get the larger diamond stone and the Norton or Shapton, and consider a 4000 for getting the back polished out on a new tool if you do not have a diamond paste setup. The great virtue of the Norton is it is reasonably priced, cuts relatively fast, and polishes the bevel to a very usable polish... but feel free to drop several times that if you are really into natural stones.

- Side clamping jig (I have the Lie-Nielsen, but the Eclipse style works well with a bit of tweaking and can be had for $35 or so)
- DuoSharp 10" C/XC diamond stone (about $140)
- Norton 8000 (about $140)

Maintenance: The C/XC diamond stone is used to flatten the waterstone.

Finally, if you add things up, about $800 or so less tax and shipping...not cheap. If on a serious budget, the ScarySharp TM wet/dry paper system works, but is just too much work for ongoing professional use. For hobby use, even profligate use of paper will still not come up to the $800 mark for many years. There are also a number of grinding options available... I used a Tormek for the first year at Greenridge, and hated it - slow, messy, and did I mention s-l-o-w? The CBN wheel was a revelation. if you already have a bench grinder, and preferably a low speed one, the CBN wheels can be had in 5/8" and 3/4" arbor.

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

I use the 'scary sharp' process. It fits my (amateur) budget. My time has no billable value and twenty bucks goes a long way. Often I see the amateur with cash spend way more on his tools, fixtures, and shop equipment than the working craftsman who likes to eat and pay their bills, not just in lutherie, too.

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Peter Havriluk

Apprentice…

8x3" Dia-sharp XXC and XXF. Initially you'll need something for polishing, but don't spend much money on it. Adhesive-backed lapping film on glass or acrylic is fine. By the time it wears out, the XXF should be worn in enough that you won't need anything else.

The XXC doubles as an everlasting ultra-flat sanding block for wood. It clogs up pretty quickly, but if you have a sink nearby you can wash and dry it in a few seconds so it's not too much of a problem.

I use a Kell no.2 honing guide, but I'd like to find or make something similar that either has sealed ball bearings or is easy to disassemble and clean when the wheels start sliding on the XXF. This one uses giant circlips, which I'd probably never be able to get back on if I take it apart, so I just feed oil in the gaps as best I can to get it moving freely again.

I use the Todd Stock method also: Slow speed white grinding wheel when needed, coarse diamond Stone then right to the 8k Shapton using the little angle jig.

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Pat

Several roads to the same place. For motorized sharpening, I enjoy owning and using a Sorby Pro Edge. We had a fellow come to our local woodworking club meeting a few years ago. He owns one of these devices that measures the sharpness of an edge tool by how much force is required to slice through an artificial hair. I came in second place with a chisel I had taken from garage sale condition to pretty darn sharp in about a half hour of work from very coarse grits through to polishing.

But I still use other means, too. Grinder, diamond plates, jigs, etc., as mentioned already. I think having choices allows you to figure out over time what meets your needs best, and it might not be the same all the time.

My sharpening "system" definitely evolved over time, getting both simpler and more readily available for use. At some point self realization indicated an important factor in how long I would put off a sharpening task. The most important thing turned out to not be the stuff, but how ready it was for use. If I had to take out and set up the stuff every time I needed something sharpened I would put off sharpening until the tool was practically unusable. These days everything is set up and ready to use all the time, and this accessibility enables me to sharpen earlier than I would have previously. FWIW, here's the stuff:

For grinding I use a 400 grit silicon carbide belt in the horizontal belt sander. The platen of the sander has been flattened at a machine shop. The tool is held freehand. A coffee can of water is on hand, and the tool dipped in it every second or so of grinding. For out cannel gouges the tension on the belt is backed off, and the space between the front roller and the platen is used. Inside surfaces of gouges are sharpened on a piece of dowel covered with PSA sandpaper.

Sharpening is done with 400 (if necessary), 600, and 1000 grit diamond stones. The chisel or blade is held freehand. Here too, inside surfaces of gouges are sharpened on a piece of dowel covered with PSA sandpaper.

My polishing setup has evolved the most. Initially I used a strop made of a long flat length of wood with chromium oxide compound rubbed on it. It works fast, but I never had this thing attached to a bench and ready for use - really no place in my compact shop to do this. Eventually that was replaced with a hard felt wheel on a bench grinder, using the same compound. But a few years back, when my granddaughter was building a guitar in my shop, I wouldn't let her touch that setup, the potential catastrophe of that very sharp blade or chisel slipping out of her hands and flying around the shop being in the front of my mind. So I put together a hand-cranked version of that, and still use it. The hand cranked machine works about as fast as the strop, but in my shop it was easier to find a permanent mounting place for it.

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R.M. Mottola
LiutaioMottola.com

Author of the books Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar and Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms.

I sharpen my chisels freehand. 1000 and 800 grit Sharpton's. I love them because they only need a spritz of water.

If I need to start from the beginning, I use a regular high speed grinder and dunk the blade in water frequently. I have not had a problem with this and see no need to go out and buy a slow speed one, ever. As a machinist, in my 20s and early 30s, this was all we ever used for sharpening everything, so I guess I got used to it.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I have everything from water stones to Shaptons and diamond plates but usually use my Veritas Mark Mk ll Power sharpener that I bought 15 years or so ago. Quick and easy and works very well.

For sharping I have the Lee Valley Mark II and a 12"X16"X 1" piece of glass. If I'm doing a lot of sharpening, I use the 'scary sharp'. I also have DMT diamond plates and water stones. If I really have an OCD episode, I have a 14,000 grit water stone I picked up at Lee Valley on their used/clearance table. I often do touch ups freehand in between though.

Brent

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Where I am now is not where I was 10 or 15 years ago.

Now, I use a Worksharp 3000 powered unit to remove damage from p60 to p400 sandpaper grits.

For paring, I move to freehand on a fine India stone charged with 500 grit (FEPA) lapidary abrasive, soft Arkansas stones charged with 500 grit alumina and then 1-3 micron polish, followed by a light buffing with Kocur yellow (a fairly coarse, fast cutting compound.)

For chopping, I go from the worksharp to p800 sandpaper and straight to the buffer.

This produces an extremely durable but sharp edge. I found the additional edge prep quite beneficial for paring, but not really necessary for chopping.

Now... The preamble...

I started with jigs and sandpaper and diamond plates. I got extremely sharp edges that fell off much too quickly on the work. So, for example, chipping or rolling edges was fairly commonplace doing things like trimming bindings, carving brace ends, cleaning up head block and neck mortises, and the like. That put me on a pilgrimage to sort out my sharpening.

The other caveat in this is that the chisel plays just as important a consideration. Low quality tools simply won't hold up. My own tests showed a 10x difference in cutting performance when properly prepped between a poor quality chisel and a good one. As in a low quality chisel dulls after 4-6 grams of paring end grain while the good ones might go 50+ grams of end grain. The worst part of this is that it's not always clear what is "Good" and what is not via price or brand name. I've got fantastic stuff that cost the same or less than brand name duds.

No substitute for good steel. Lots of ways to get a good edge and I've used many of them, proper angle for what you're cutting is essential.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I've tried about everything but have settled on flattening the back then, placing the back against the edge of the bench with my left hand and rubbing a diamond plate on the bevel with my right hand until a burr is raised. Because I can see what I'm doing vs moving the chisel with the bevel down against the abrasive I don't need a guide.

So... Is there some specific complaint about your current sharpening method you are trying to improve upon?

This may help us give you better and more directed feedback.

Thanks

I freehand with Atoma diamond plate 400 (primarily for stone flattening) and 1000, and Shapton 4K and 16K.

I use the Lie-Nielsen guide with a 1000 grit DMT Dia-Sharp followed by a fine grit stone. I have a 5000 and 8000 stones in my jig. When it comes to actually making shavings, at some point fine is fine enough, and both do a very nice job. I think any modern stone like Norton or Shapton will give good results. My 5000 is a Chosera, and the 8000 is Takenoko. I may be spelling that wrong.

With the various jaws made for the LN jig, I can sharpen anything from my big plane irons to short finger plane blades. It’s a great system, but a bit expensive.

I also made a version of Lie-Nielsen’s angle setting jig, which you can find here:

https://www.lie-nielsen.com/pages/downloads

If the jig is out on the bench, I can have a great edge in a minute or less.

I picked up a knock-off of the Woodpeckers jig from Banggood last fall, but haven’t used it yet. It’s *shockingly* high quality for the price. The tricky part is that you need to order both of the following:

1) https://usa-m.banggood.com/Honing-Guide ... ion_type=2

2) https://usa-m.banggood.com/Mohoo-Sharpe ... m-alsolike


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I've moved to the dark side - got a 10" wetstone grinder.
I'm 75 y.o. this month and after 40 years of oilfield work my shoulders, left elbow and hands aren't in great shape.
Anything more than honing on a fine stone quickly resulted in sharp pain in my shoulders, and discouraged me from sharpening.
Not good!
So, no more hours of grinding on a coarse diamond stone for me.
BUT, I've had to warn my wife about the kitchen knifes....

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.